James Caig pointed to this wonderful post by Shane Parrish about how writing helps you think – a subject to which I have returned several times on this blog. Shane has a typically thoughtful take on the subject (the best I think I’ve read), going beyond what I’ve said before about how blogging is like thinking aloud and how writing helps you to understand what you think about the world.
In a world where GenAI can efficiently craft simplistic paragraphs and essays for you, Shane makes the point that there are times where inefficiency is the point. Writing helps you to crystallise your thinking about a topic, forcing you to slow down, focus, and spend time with the subject. And like Richard Feynman’s famous technique, writing helps you to learn. You can’t write well about something unless you have a desire to explore it or you truly understand it. Yet it is also ‘the process by which you realize that you do not understand what you are talking about’. It brings into focus exactly what you know and what you don’t know about a subject.
As Shane says, many people think that Powerpoint and writing are interchangeable but this is simply not the case. Amazon are well known for prizing a writing culture, and the ability for execs to articulate a business case in a written narrative – to quote Bezos:
‘The reason writing a good four-page memo is harder than ‘writing’ a 20-page PowerPoint is because the narrative structure of a good memo forces better thought and better understanding of what’s more important than what, and how things are related.’
The process of editing, and deciding what to leave out, is as important as writing the initial draft. It obligates you to consider what’s really important to you in the topic, and what can be sacrificed.
I’m a believer that most organisations undervalue the ability to write as a skill. And that’s a real shame because most organisations can benefit from the clearer, more careful and critical thinking that writing enables and reinforces.
Let’s never forget that writing changes how we think about the world.
Photo by Art Lasovsky on Unsplash
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